Tuesday, July 5, 2016

You, To Me, Are Treasured; You, To Me, Are Dear

There have been too many losses, unexpected and way too
early, in the past 18 months.One blink
and they were gone.I’m still processing,
which may not be a huge surprise considering some of the deaths are very recent,
coupled with the fact that I don’t have the best set of coping skills (or temperament
if I’m being completely honest).

Growing up Catholic, I was doomed to start out too late and
always being a step too slow.For as
obsessed with death as the Catholic Church is, they sure don’t provide much in
the way of coping tools for an impressionable angst-ridden lad during his
weekday catechism class.Oh sure, they
are great with the guilt and the perpetual promise of suffering for any moment
of pleasure.But they are too busy
cranking out rural route martyrs like they have an open purchase order and
making life as miserable as possible, to offer any possible help to get through
this thing called life.

I’ll take my own share of the blame for not getting better
at it as an adult.I certainly had
enough experience, but somehow getting through the grieving, understanding,
accepting of death, was a skill I never developed. The vocabulary of therapy was foreign to me and the language was just so
much speaking in tongues.I barely heard
it, much less listened.I was only too willing to shortcut the
process, getting through the sadness as quickly as possible and either burying
it all, or just simply cutting and running and leaving it all behind.Forgetting was always my acceptance which was
no acceptance at all.I am aware that
perhaps that drug isn’t working anymore.

But there is hope.For
all of my purposeful forgetting, there are three things I never forget, and
music is one of them. Like the man says in “Sunken Treasure, “ Music
is my savior, so maybe sharing a couple musical memories about some of the
departed is a small step in the right
direction.And although it’s gonna take
some time this time, music is gonna see me through.

I met Joni my freshman year at the University of
Minnesota.She was the librarian at
Southeast Community Library right across the street from my dorm, Sanford
Hall.With her appreciation of pop
culture and absurdity, and a devoted love of books, we became friends
immediately.She quickly figured out my nascent
musical taste and started selecting albums for me to complement and develop my musical
palate, tossing all kinds of works mainstream (Dylan, Neil Young, Joni
Mitchell) and obscure (Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa) my way and insisting
that I read Lester Bangs (who was this guy writing about music---and also, how
in the world did I not become a music critic?).And of course, after I’d read each week’s Billboard, we’d discuss
upcoming releases and take my lists of albums she should buy for her next batch
of library purchases.

The one act she loved
above all others was Paul Simon, either with or without Art.We both loved “Hearts and Bones” and talked about
it for weeks as we first got to know each other.I loved it; she liked it, but was annoyed
that Paul thought his listeners needed to be told the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains were the Blood of Christ Mountains.For a melody so lovely and lyrics so heartfelt (other than that obvious
(child) misstep, I still think she should have given Paul a pass.There was no quibbling about “Graceland.”She loved it to the moon, and I was easily
upper stratosphere and cultural approbation aside.Joni was originally from Kansas, but she
could have been a child of Tucson (she sure liked her Linda Rondstat).Give her the wings to fly through harmony and
her passing won’t bother me no more.

I
could write forever about Joni and how much she meant to that dorky music hound
of a kid she befriended.

Tom was an avid biker.By avid biker, I mean complete and total madman biker and I gave him the
wrong impression right away.I met him
on the Sakatah Singing Hills Trail between Faribault and Mankato one early fall
day while I was going to school at Mankato State.Now I was just riding this trail on a whim
and had zero intention of going for more than a couple miles (preferably
downhill) on my beat up bike with a slipping chain as far from Aerodynamik as mechanically
possible.Along came this wheeled
warrior gang.You know that feeling when
you are feeling daring and stand really close to cars whizzing by on an
overpass?That was this times 5.As they all zipped by me, I was pretty sure I
started moved backwards, even though I was still pedaling my merry way
along.As they zoomed down the bend in
front of me (very Tour de France, btw), a guy to the front of the pack turned
his head my way and gave me a wave before disappearing into a point on the
curve.30 or so minutes later, a little
after I’d turned around and headed right back to where I started from, I hear
the ominous buzz of a hundred thousand ferocious bees.I turned around and wouldn’t you know it,
there was that pack of pros again.They
gave me a little more leeway this time and once they’d all passed me, one of
the guys pulled out and rode beside me.He introduced himself and we biked back to my car and chatted all the
way; him asking me how many miles I biked a week and giving tips and advice on
how to get my endurance and miles up.I
never really had the heart correct him and just say that I hadn’t biked in
years before that day and I would ache for a week once I got back to Mankato,
promising myself I was done biking forever.But having passed out my phone number, Tom took full advantage and
cajoled me into biking time after time and a really great friendship happened
along the way that transcendedbiking.
Tom was a big classical music fan and
he had the (annoying, I thought at the time) habit of humming random classical
music themes while we biked.Funny how
my classical music knowledge came from warner brothers cartoons and Tom’s
random humming while we were biking along.Also, I noticed that when I was invited to ride with the pack, Tom did
not hum.Just sayin.He wasn’t particularly operatic but I still
associate him most with Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries (probably because that
was one of the tunes I was actually familiar with, but also because it suited
biking and Tom always added orchestration).

Ride on, my friend, ride on.

Shawn’s uncle Mark was a great guy with an amazing encyclopedic
mind with regard to cars, history and music.He shared my appreciation (mania) for boxed sets and regaled me with
details of every little variation on every take of every song Duane Allman
recorded, and I was enraptured.And I didn’t
even care for the Allman brothers!You’d
think he was just an album rockhead, caught up in the 60’s rock explosion, but I
was also surprised at how diverse his musical tastes were and how he continued
to find new music to listen to even in his last years (along with spending
perhaps way too much on boxed sets that he already had in other forms).I was amazed to find all the recent indie
rock in his record collection after he passed and kick myself for not loading
him up with stuff from my collection (although I do have to say, he kind of
disdained mixed tapes and pretty much ignored any burned cd of 60’s artists I ever
gave him.If there was ever a record
industries best friend, it was Mark.I know
the beatles weren’t his most favorite band, and we never sat and listened to it
together, but we sure talked about that first disc of the while album a bunch
of times and Rocky Raccoon just has a western history feel that makes me think
of Mark every time.

I’d like to order one large rare steak, Caesar salad (extra
anchovies) with a super cold beer glass and a bottle of Duvel, please.And let’s listen to some music.

I didn’t really have music in common with Jeff.Although he was pretty amused by my shelves
upon shelves of cds (I think I might have showed him only one of the secret
racks too, but that raised eyebrow was enough to keep me from sharing more) music
for him was just part of a fun time and it wasn’t at all what we bonded over.

Which is a little bit funny cos we were the same age and we
shared pretty much the same frame of reference; growing up in small towns in the farmland in
the 80’s, cue “Footlose” here.We both
got the heck out of dodge (him being the BMOC with much fonder memories and
lifetime connections) and set our sights on going somewhere (which isn’t really
what we bonded over either), and he succeeded fantastically (and had no small
part in mentoring me to whatever success I have these days).And I’m pretty sure his taste in those days
ran to Journey and Styx and probably a little Genesis (and whatever weepy
ballads a sweetheart tossed his way) more than the Peter Gabriels and Elvis
Costellos and my beloved M’s of the day.

And even on those
rare occasions when we talked contemporary music in the times and places we
crossed paths, he was always more of a bar band, blues rock kind of guy. I
never got the chance to ask, but I’m sure he would have been a big Nathaniel
Rateliff and the Night Sweats kind of guy, so we’d have had that one.

One time when we were hanging out, I was teasing him about
going to see Cowboy Mouth (at the Varsity, my formerly second favorite place in
the whole world to see a show) and he was insisting that they were a lot better
band that I gave them credit for being.I
was not having it (and this was years
after whatever brief heyday they ever had).He told me he was gonna take me to see them sometime and I kinda laughed
it off.I dunno why I didn’t agree.I’ve seen plenty of other worse bands and it
would have been a lot of fun kick back with him with a beer and a show.That’s
not going to happen now, but I’ll be going on my own now, just to see if he was
right.

I still can’t quite get my head around this one.He was a month younger than me.How’m I gonna sleep?I know it had been awhile and who knows when
we’d have crossed paths again, but I was so sure we would.More fool me for leaving it to chance instead
of trying to make it happen.

I just went on a trip north to Grand Marais for the weekend.I can’t say he wasn’t on my mind even during
a pretty fun weekend.Before the trip, I
filled up a memory stick with all sorts of random songs for our listening pleasure
on the drive.Kinda rushed and willy
nilly pullingfrom the magic hard drive
and maybe not really paying attention to what I was putting on there, other
than the blood orange album (which was only sorta meh, but I’m not sure where
my head was at so, I’m not writing it off yet).When I got home, I rustled about for a half hour, and although I really
needed a nap, I realized that the trip up north was just a diversion (albeit, a
super fun diversion with a mountain hike and a moose sighting) and what I really
needed to do was drive south and visit the cemetery where Jeff was buried.

I didn’t have the music playing for most of the way, but
when I started getting close, I plugged the jump drive in. Probably mostly kinda sorta to distract me
from whatever I might be thinking feeling remembering.Of all
the bands that could come up, the waterboys came on first.A band I didn’t even recall putting on the
memory stick and if you can imagine a
perfectly beautiful summer evening, driving through the rolling farmhills of
southern Minnesota, with a song from
Fisherman’s Blues ringing out, I think you
know what I was feeling.And then the
very next song to come up was “Last Stop: This Town”.”I’m gonna fly on down for the last stop to
this town.What?I’m gonna fly on down then fly away.”

I had to pull off to the side of the road to settle a bit
before I made my way to the cemetery.